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by Isaac GeorgeDecember 12th, 2012When I heard from the folks at The Template headquarters in London about the newest Ceremony, number 7, and that it may be called Kundalini, I was quite excited. On top of that, since Juliet and Jiva had the 7th come through during the transit of Venus across the face of the Sun on June 5th, I knew that this was somehow tied into the first Pluto-Uranus exact square that was taking place later that month - June 24th to be precise. I’ve always felt the Uranian factor in my personal life, since I have Uranus conjoined my natal Sun, but the information that the 7th Ceremony was themed around Kundalini was also personally significant. My own kundalini awakening was triggered by a transit of Uranus in 1994. During a conversation with Jennifer at the London headquarters in late September, we got onto the subject of the 7thCeremony, and eventually she suggested that I write an article about kundalini and the Uranian effect in these times. The suggestion was almost forgotten until this past weekend, and spurred on by the upcoming synchronicities of 12-12-12 and the Winter Solstice, here are the fruits of the labour.In my beginnings as a practicing astrologer, the one thing that always made the profoundest of impressions on me was the effect and influence of transiting planets. Early on I was shown how the ‘transits’exerted power within personal charts and collective movements. When a planet is transiting, it is describing the current celestial movements on our Solar system compared to the stationary snapshot of an individual’s birth chart. This can also be applied to the birth chart of a nation or a civilization. The astrologer Robert Hand described transits as the outer manifestation of conditions within the psyche of the individual. This was a radical stance, even for an astrologer, for it implied that the experience of a transit was also complicit in creating the conditions whereby the planet or planets in question were doing exactly what was need in the moment to effect a conscious response to something that was previously unconscious. I was shown during a reading I had for relocation astrology how transits could describe my past journey up to the present moment. The astrologer asked me for a chronological diary of major life events from birth till the present, and was to include childhood memories, both good and bad, such as accidents, major happy events, first time falling in love, death of siblings, or one or both parents, near-death experiences, spiritual awakenings, moving, etc. Consequently this astrologer showed me the particular transits involved in evoking the outer experiences, and it was stunning to see the accuracy and power of this for myself. In May of 2001, while having lunch with one of my astrology teachers, the subject of the upcoming opposition of Saturn and Pluto came up. The first point of exact opposition would be in mid-August. My teacher stated unequivocally (and I have it recorded on tape) that President George W. Bush would either start a war(s) or would be forced into starting one or more conflicts. Saturn in Gemini represented ‘us’, or Western civilization – the powers that apparently were controlling the world, while Pluto in Sagittarius represented fanatical and fundamental beliefs, like Islamic or Christian fundamentalism. When Sept.11th happened, we also saw the glyph for Gemini take on the ominous symbol of the Twin Towers themselves. It also represented the intransigence of Bush’s challenge…either your with us or against us. 9/11 happened within three and half weeks of the first exact opposition. The tug of war had commenced. In 2007 I became aware of the significance of two powerful outer planet transits that would affect me personally. I also had a growing awareness that the rest of the astrological grapevine was also taking notice – and sounding warnings. Many times in the past the middle of the road astrologers have gotten it wrong, and so many were cautious in offering up any serious concerns. When Neptune entered Aquarius in the previous decade, the prognosis was that there would be a fantastic uprising of egalitarian consciousness that would sweep in a new order that aligned with New Age principles. What we got instead was more spin in the media and more manipulation of the New Age and New Spirituality by clandestine intelligence agencies. Co-opting the opposition through psychological displacement was evident everywhere. The media led drive towards ever more consumerist philosophy as spiritual promise also gained strength. The experts within astrology were blindsided by Neptune’s foggy notions of Nirvana. The two major characters involved in the pre and post 2012 epoch are Uranus and Pluto. Pluto left Sagittarius and entered Capricorn in November 2008. It had previously dipped into Capricorn in mid-2007, so the stage had already been set for the housing and credit bubbles to pop before it went into Capricorn for good…and it will stay there until 2024. Pluto is about power and transformation and Capricorn rules structures, especially existing structures of politics, economics and finance. Combined, these two archetypes gave birth to retrenchment of the power elite behind the gift of austerity for the rest of us. “How can we get along on fewer resources” is the message of Pluto in Capricorn. However, as we have seen, it does not apply to the 1%. Uranus would be leaving Pisces, a water sign, and enter Aries, a fire sign, on March 11th, 2011. I am when I ask many people what happened on March 11th, 2011, and no one seems to remember it! However, when you mention Boxing Day 2004, everyone remembers the Indonesian earthquake and devastating tsunami that came afterwards. Uranus had just reached the 3rd degree in its transit through Pisces in Dec. 2004. When any planet reaches the 3rd plus degree of the sign it is moving through, it can be said to establish the theme of the other 27 degrees. In this case, upheaval and change through sudden ingresses of water. The next seven years would be the rise of the super storms, the super hurricanes, and the massive flooding in parts of Europe, Asia and the Americas. So, can you remember what happened on March 11th, 2011? The 9.0 earthquake stuck off the coast of Sendai, Honshu, Japan at 2:46pm local time (5:46am UTC). Uranus was at 29 degrees and 57 minutes of Pisces. Since the earthquake was shallow (only 20miles deep) and happened so close to the coastline, residents barely had enough warning before the tsunami roared inland. By the time Uranus entered the sign of Aries at 12:26 JST on March 12th, Fukushima Daichi Nuclear power station was beginning its inexorable slide towards the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in the Soviet Union. The fires of nuclear power needed water to cool them, and the pumps all failed in the wake of the tsunami. Uranium is derived from the word Uranus. Plutonium is derived from the word Pluto. To further illustrate, I’ve enclosed a chart erected for the event of the earthquake (Figure 1). Note the kite-shaped aspects between Saturn, the Moon and Neptune form a Yod, known also as the Finger of God. Pluto squares the opposition between Jupiter and Saturn, and even though it was a wide square by degree, it added to the stresses. (I know that many of you who may read this article do not recognize some of the astrological glyphs…no worries please about the astro-babble!) To date, Fukushima is still in the news, and still a threat to human an ecological health. My view in 2007 about the coming Uranus in Aries transit was that it heralded the awakening of the collective kundalini. In esoteric astrology one of Uranus’ attributes is divine fire, represented by the archetypal myth of Prometheus. Prometheus made man stand upright and stole fire from the ‘gods’ and gave it to humankind to stay warm and to use in the building of civilization. For this act, Prometheus was punished for this by Zeus, and the tale is tied up with Pandora and Pandora’s box (curse), and later he is bound by the Olympian Vulcan. The ‘fire’ of the gods is synomynous with kundalini priniciple, the divine fire that liberates human beings and reunites them with the Universal Source beyond the petty jealousies and machinations of the lower ‘gods’. Kundalini is part of the Soul Covenant, and resides in dormant at the root chakra until it is stimulated by something dramatic. Kundalini awakenings are a form of shamanic death and rebirth, and usually begin from seemingly mundane or surprising stimuli. Long labour and childbirth, a car accident, loss of a loved one, or an actual physical injury to the lower spine can all trigger a spontaneous kundalini event. So can an extremely powerful sexual encounter, one which opens the heart and energy field to love and higher realms. Some psychotropic substances, like ayahuasca, can also initiate the kundalini force to begin rising up the spine. So now we come to the dynamics of these times…Uranus in Aries. To me, this is the energy behind so much of the upheaval and unrest right now. Just before the ingress of Uranus into Aries, we saw the first sparks of the Arab Spring. Then, in late spring and early summer, the Occupy Wall Street movement erupted. Since both movements are socio-political in makeup, I didn’t expect the first expressions to be anything more than a testing of the waters. The student riots over tuition fees in London during the summer of 2011, and the police rioting in New York against the Occupy Wall Streeters, perfectly exemplified the stance of Pluto in Capricorn. The power of the State versus the power of the individual. Now that Uranus is coming out of a long, five-month retrograde cycle, I expect that the embers will be fanned into flames in the first quarter of 2013. With the advent of Ceremony 7, there is a practical template to assist in the realization of collective Kundalini awakening. The divine fire that burns away the enchantments and chains of the past, and restores our dynamic tantric,, creative potency to full expression. The Uranian influences are just getting underway, and Uranus itself will end its introspective period tomorrow, within minutes of the New Moon, and will play the perfect foil to the lunar interference. The actual chart for Dec. 21st, 2012 shows Uranus at 4 degrees of Aries, in the 1st house of the calculated chart for GMT (UTC) London. What a perfect placement on the Grand Meridian, as the First House of the Zodiac is by default ruled by Aries/Mars. Uranus humbles the wise celestial mechanic, and I cannot, nor will not, predict the various events that may arise due to Prometheus breaking the chains of the mortal paradigm. I do know that things will appear and disappear suddenly, surprisingly, and with fire and lightning. It is best to seek to ground oneself fully with the Earth/Gaia complex, so that the lightning of transformation can be embodied without short-circuiting. I can only anticipate possible trends with this powerful Titan of archetypes, but there is no certainty in the manifesting of the effects. Relying on the wisdom of uncertainty may be the best strategy for the waters we are now entering. Peace, and blessings on your journey, Isaac George Cork, Ireland